How to Properly Pronounce Taiwanese Chinese Names in 返校 -Detention-

Many foreign players has played this game(thanks!), however several Chinese names aren't pronounced quite correctly due to the fact that the translation of the character is merely an approximation and is rather inaccurate.

This guide and the corresponding materials will help you pronounce the names much correctly.

NOTE: May not be 100% correct.

Preface

Many players from different language region has played this game(thanks!), however several Chinese names aren’t pronounced quite correctly due to the fact that the translation of the character is merely an approximation and is rather inaccurate.

This guide and the corresponding materials will help you pronounce the names much more correctly.

Note

• This guide is written by a Taiwanese that is native in modern Taiwanese Chinese and Mandarin, however the language is continuously changing, the accent in 1960s may be not 100% same as the modern mandarin(I believe it will be slightly closer with Beijing Mandarin due to the influence of the earlier migrated or fled of Republic of China people to Taiwan).
  
• The pronunciation documented below is in Taiwanese Mandarin instead of Chinese/China-nese Mandarin, the two language is in nowadays different in many ways, please don’t assume that learning Taiwanese Mandarin will help you learn Chinese Mandarin to any extent, especially if you plan to migrate to China in the future.
  
• This guide is just been written and may contains errors.

Taiwanese Mandarin Phonetic Symbols / 臺灣漢語注音符號

First let us introduce you the Taiwanese Mandarin Phonetic Symbols that every Taiwanese child will learn, with these phonetic symbols’ combination you may pronounce most(if not all) Taiwanese Chinese characters. Also it is used in typing Chinese characters using the Phonetic Symbol(注音(zhu-yin)) input method by combining multiple phonetic symbols into a character to be inserted which in contrast to English, every keystroke generates a character insertion.

These phonetic symbols, just like English alphabets, are classified into Consonant and Vowels. These symbols are each assigned a pronunciation, however the pronunciation is only for ease of pronouncing each phonetic symbol and doesn’t fully contribute into their combination form(the contributing part is mark as boldface in the following tables). Also the pronunciation in the following table is also an approximation, please refer the corresponding audio/video for reference.

Also there’s phonetic symbols to specify the 聲調(tone(?)) of the phonetic combination, unfortunately these can not be approximated using alphabets and need to refer the corresponding audio/video.

Consonants

Markup not converted yet, refer here for more details[hackmd.io]

Vowels

Markup not converted yet, refer here for more details[hackmd.io]

Tones

Markup not converted yet, refer here for more details[hackmd.io]

Phonetic Symbol Combinations

Markup not converted yet, refer here for more details[hackmd.io]

TL;DR. How to Properly Pronounce Taiwanese Chinese Names in The 返校 -Detention- Game?

Now let’s discuss how to properly pronounce these Chinese names! Note that in Chinese human names last name is pronounced first, with the first name follows, which is opposite with English.

The following English translation is merely for reference.

魏（ㄨㄟˋ）仲（ㄓㄨㄥˋ）廷（ㄊㄧㄥˊ）
Zhong-Ting, Wei

• Reference pronunciation: https://soundcloud.com/buo-ren-lin/how-to-pronounce-of-wei-a-character-in-the-game-detention

方（ㄈㄤ）芮（ㄖㄨㄟˋ）欣（ㄒ一ㄣ）
Ray-Shin, Fong

• Reference pronunciation: https://soundcloud.com/buo-ren-lin/how-to-pronounce-ray-a-character-in-the-game-detention
  
• A common error for English-speaking player is that “方” is pronounced exactly as literally “fang”, the sound is rather close to vowel “o” instead of “a”
  
• A common error for Japanese-speaking player is that “芮” is pronounced close to “lay” instead of “ray” due to the Japanese translation

殷（ㄧㄣ）翠（ㄘㄨㄟˋ）涵（ㄏㄢˊ）
Tsuei-Han, Yin

• Reference pronunciation: https://soundcloud.com/buo-ren-lin/how-to-pronounce-tsuei-han-yin-a-character-in-the-game-detention
  
• A common error for English-speaking player is to pronounce 翠 as “swuei”, the t and s sound should be pronounced at the same moment which sounds like “ts…”.

張（ㄓㄤ）明（ㄇㄧㄥˊ）輝（ㄏㄨㄟ）
Ming-Huei, Zhang

• Reference pronunciation: https://soundcloud.com/buo-ren-lin/how-to-pronounce-ming-huei-zhang-a-character-in-the-game-detention
  
• A common error for English player is to pronounce “張” as “chang” as in “change”, it is in fact “zhang” with the “ang” pronouce closer to “ong” as in “long”

白（ㄅㄞˊ）國（ㄍㄨㄛˊ）峰（ㄈㄥ）
Guo-Fong, Bai

• Reference pronunciation: https://soundcloud.com/buo-ren-lin/how-to-pronounce-guo-fong-bai-a-character-in-the-game-detention
  
• A common error for English player is to pronounce “峰” as “feng” as in “friend”, it is in fact pronouce closer to “fong” as in “long”

[VAEΞ ASTRA]

I've been trying to study traditional mandarin for a while and this really helps, thanks for the guide.

[this first-draft dream of mine]

I would say "Feng"/"Fong" is not pronounced like "long", it's pronounced like if you said "phone" but changed the end to "ng". It's definitely different from the sound of "Chang"/"Zhang".